Issue Poster
GDES-270 fall 2019 (David Ramos, American University Design)
ramos@american.edu · office hours
Design a poster that addresses a social, politcal, or environmental issue. Choose an issue that has a relationship to a particular place that you know, possibly a place in the broader Chesapeake Bay region.
Lester Beall, Rural Electrification Administration, 1937 (MoMA).
Adbusters, Occupy Wall Street, 2011 (more at Design Observer).
Tomasz Sarnecki, Solidarność (Solidarity), 1989.
Martin Venezky, Tulane.
Process and requirements
Start with research so that you gain a strong understanding of the issue. Move from there to exploring ideas through sketching, photography, and collecting materials—you should examine three or more concepts in rough form. Create one final poster.
The poster should contain a headline that speaks about your topic; it should likely include additional text as subheads and, perhaps, a short paragraph. Provide imagery to accompany the text.
Provide a separate PDF with citations for any work that is not your own. You may borrow images, if need be, but consider using outside images as reference for your own.
Specifications
- Full color or black and white
- Trim size: 16 × 24 in. (portrait)
- Present a printed, full-size sheet for final and semifinal critiques (may be tiled), and turn in a PDF
- For fonts, use only Myriad, DIN, Adobe Garamond Pro, Helvetica, Helvetica Neue, Jenson, Source Sans Pro, Source Code Pro, Bodoni, Caslon, IBM Plex (sans, serif, or mono), or Franklin Gothic. It would be prudent to choose one font, or a serif and a sans serif.